The late Denis Twitchett was Gordon Wu Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University from 1980 to 1994. He was instrumental in conceiving and shaping the 15-volume Cambridge History of China. He died in Cambridge, England, in February 2006. Paul Jakov Smith is the John R. Coleman Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Haverford College. Smith studies the institutional, social, and cultural history of mid-imperial China, spanning the Sung (960-1279), Yuan (1271-1368), and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. His current book project is entitled War and Political Culture in Mid-Imperial China: The Song Military and the Literati State.
This addition to the authoritative multivolume Cambridge History of China presents a chronological account broadly focused on the political and military history of a period of vast, deep, and irreversible change...Scholarly footnotes, 32 maps, and a 53-page bibliography offer guidance for further research...No serious student can afford to neglect this excellent starting point for research and reflection. In tandem with its forthcoming companion volume of topical essays, it testifies to the radical vigor of scholarship that during the last 50 years has radically changed and continues to transform scholarly understanding of these three and a half centuries. Indispensable to advanced students. Summing Up: Essential. --Choice